Community Updates

Our Goal

OUR GOAL

To provide a unique environment where folks who have experienced trauma can openly and safely talk. We strive to respect, validate, and learn from each other.

ACHIEVING OUR GOAL

Achieving our goal requires cooperative collaboration amongst members and staff. Members posts remain appropriate and relevant to topics. Terms of Service are clearly posted to help members maintain the dignity of the board. Members of this group are at a stage in their healing to independently regulate their own behavior, as well as keeping themselves safe while on the forums. Staff regularly monitor posts and replies to ensure the board remains a safe and comfortable environment of learning for everyone.

As a friendly and kind community, we validate each other as equally special and significant.

These forums are active and the community not too large or too small - about 400 post per day. There are many forums on different topics. The topics range in subject matter also. You are welcome to interact as you feel comfortable.

This is a safe place for members. We encourage building coping skills, learning from each other and material shared. We discourage sharing explicit memories of past abuse. We feel that processing memories be done with professionals. There are no practicing therapists on these forums. Therefore, topics that call for therapist type responses are discouraged.

Feel free to look around. Realize that, as a guest, your view of the forums is minimal. These forums are otherwise private to the public view and/or search engines.

We have literally hundreds of articles and provide workshops for everyone. Please feel free to email me anytime with questions. I am also providing a tutorial that should help with navigating our site.

Ivory Garden Dissociative Identity Disorder Support Group or IGDID, as it has come to be known, has recently been redesigned as the safest and most comprehensive, private support group for folks with DID on the internet.

Following the success of last year's Trauma and Dissociation Conference, Ivory Garden Board of Directors opened up membership to the nonprofit, charitable organization - giving the public an opportunity to not only show support, but also to provide for those who wish to participate on the support forum (IGDID), a sense of loyalty and belonging.

Therefore, Ivory Garden Dissociative Identity Disorder Support Group - IGDID - which had been, for some 8 years, providing a safe community for thousands of folks with dissociative disorders - is now improved with all members knowing that they support what the company stands for, its missions and goals:

Ivory Garden strives to provide support to survivors and those who support survivors, as well as raising public and professional awareness of the effects of childhood trauma:

1). Provide international forums, and chat rooms where folks who live with the effects of childhood trauma, as well as families, friends, mental health professionals, educators and other supporters can meet, share experiences, and find valid resources in safe and respectful environments.

2). Provide educational materials and opportunities to survivors of childhood trauma in order to further understand and promote healing.

3) Provide educational opportunities to those who support survivors of childhood trauma including: family, friends, mental health professionals, educators, and other interested parties.

4). Provide other needed services in support of the Mission, as determined by the Board of Directors of Ivory Garden.

We can all be proud that the work so many have done to make this happen has finally come to pass. It is rare in the 'survivor community' to be able to trust that their personal information remains confidential, that the environment is safe and stable, that the staff is trustworthy, that every member is significant and important, and that things are run professionally.

Apologies are in order to the members of Ivory Garden DID Support Group - IGDID. We felt it important that our long-term members become life-time members of Ivory Garden - an honor to those who have been here for us - supporting and caring for so long. Setting all of this up has taken months, as we are also setting up new members, doing some housekeeping, and redesigning the board. I realize that these seem big changes and formidable for those of us who don't like change much. To let everyone know - the board is not changing. There will be additions - webinars, scheduled chats, newsletters, and workshops. I also apologize that for a couple of months our board looked empty. That was done to protect the identity of those who were posting on the board while I was designing the new front page. We didn't actually 'go' anywhere. We are still here better than ever.

All who are members of Ivory Garden can feel a part of something that has never been done before. We were just a support message board for about 6 years, we incorporated Ivory Garden some 2 1/2 years ago as a nonprofit, charitable organization. So, a bit backwards. We built the largest and most comprehensive support group for folks with dissociation on the internet - and, then - incorporated. Now, backtracking to include those who were so supportive as members is quite a job - a big leap forward -

We can announce the opening of our new group IGDID - a part of Ivory Garden - which also now includes annual conferences, 2 other support groups (one for supporters and one for professionals - each as private as IGDID), new members which include survivors, supporters, and clinicians, and the ability to have topnotch webinars, newsletters, workshops, and so much more.

We are excited about the future of Ivory Garden and thank you all for your continued support and trust in us to be here for you always.

I hope that, because of the short disruption, we have not lost anyone along the way. If you were a member of IGDID and feel that you have been displaced, or you have mistakenly 'migrated' elsewhere, just email me at felicity4us2@gmail.com. This is a time of happiness and new beginnings here -